Archive for the ‘Essay’ Category

When I was in grade school, I was really interested in UFOs. I read every book in the school library about them, watched every TV show I could find about them, and had long conversations with my friends about space aliens and ancient visitations. Then, as the years went by, I discovered more skeptical books […]

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The Pharyngula blog had a note today that mentioned a post-Christmas article by an angry Christian on another blog entitled The Next Person Who Says Happy Holidays Shall Be Punched In The Throat. I would like to comment on a few things said in the latter post as they are good examples of someone using […]

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Joey was eleven and very precocious for his age. He loved to read more than anything, and gladly spent afternoons and evenings with his nose stuck in a book. One day, soon after Joey had finished reading the Iliad, he and his mother were driving in the car. “Mom?” Joey said. “If I ever have […]

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Sarah was on her lunch break, enjoying the sunshine as she sat at a table in the park, reading a novel. Right in the middle of a particularly enjoyable paragraph, she was interrupted by a young man. “Excuse me,” he said with a perfect smile. “My name is Hank. I’d like to give you this.” […]

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Constance had a small shipping business, delivering food and clothing at charitable prices to people all over the world in her private boat. Being a realist, Constance knew that because of where she sailed and the amount of time she spent on the water, it was only a matter of time before she was confronted […]

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Hard as it may be to believe (particularly considering my erratic posting habits), this is my 1,000th post to this blog. To celebrate, I’d like to share an e-mail I received some time ago but have been saving because I wasn’t sure what to do with it. Atheists are stewpid. Here are things that atheists […]

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I have some questions for my Christian readers regarding the morality of slavery. The Bible is not anti-slavery, and in fact has instructions for the moral treatment of slaves. I understand that this, as most theists have explained it to me, is because although slavery is wrong it was so ingrained in society that God […]

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A number of times in my replies to your letters I have mentioned that I consider personal revelation to be irrefutable (but only personally compelling) evidence for the existence of a deity. That is, if there was an all-powerful deity, that deity could reveal itself to an individual in such a way that the individual […]

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Now that I have this blog, I’m going to try and publish little items once and a while that aren’t correspondence. I thought I’d start by going through all of the “arguments against atheism” on IAmAnAtheist.com and giving examples of why I really might respond to them (as opposed to the silly responses currently listed). […]